


Imprint

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon Era, M/M, No Period-Typical Homophobia, because I'm in charge here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:21:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25933567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: David Jacobs hates his Words.
Relationships: David Jacobs/Jack Kelly, Racetrack Higgins & David Jacobs, Racetrack Higgins & Jack Kelly
Comments: 52
Kudos: 225





	Imprint

**Author's Note:**

> So this is that Soulmate AU I promised! For anybody who missed my initial concept post, the idea here is that everybody has the first thing their soulmate says that _changes their life_ written somewhere on their body. I picked Words out for a bunch of characters that didn't make it in though so if you're curious about other characters give me a shout!!  
> I hope you like this :)

David hates his Words.

He tries not to think about them, doesn’t look at them if he can avoid it. Even when he rolls his sleeves, it’s just up his forearms so that the band of neat newsprint text just above the inside of his left elbow stays hidden.

The thing is, your Words are supposed to be the first thing your soulmate says to you that changes your life. They’re a big deal, and they signify both that you’ve found your person _and_ that something important and earthshattering is happening.

And David’s words are, “Nice to meet you, Davey.”

Which must mean that he’s one of those awful, sappy people whose soulmates’ first life-changing act is just walking into their lives. That is _cheating_ , system. Not fair. It doesn’t even really mesh at all with the kind of person David is – he’s much too rational for that, much too steady. Much too much his own stubborn as all hell person who isn’t the type to be swayed into major life change just by meeting someone, even if that someone is his cosmic other half.

And then there’s the other thing.

Nobody calls David Davey. Nobody has _ever_ called David Davey. He doesn’t like the sound of it, all sing-song and childish. The older he gets the more he hates it.

So why the _fuck_ would his soulmate call him that when they first meet?

Does that mean someone introduces him to his soulmate as Davey? Why?

One way or another, David hates it. He hates the nickname and he hates his Words and he feels like he’s been shorted by the universe.

“You don’t get it, Sarah,” David moans one evening, his head pillowed on his sister’s leg while she reads a book that’s propped on his forehead. “Your Words are so interesting and mysterious.”

Sarah has “ _Sarah, you should come with me!_ ” in a neat handwritten script in precisely the same place as David’s, wrapping around her left arm just above the elbow.

“They’re not that mysterious,” Sarah says. It’s far from the first time they’ve had this conversation.

“They’re plenty mysterious! Where are you going to go? When is it going to happen?” says David.

“David, you don’t know what the circumstances of yours will be either,” Sarah says. “Even if it seems like it’s a first meeting, you never know.”

David groans. “But I _do_ know, Sarah. What if my soulmate is so boring that the only way they’ll ever change my life is walking into it?”

“What if your soulmate is so incredible that just walking into your life is enough to change it forever?”

“That’s sappy.”

“So? It could still be true.”

There’s also the matter of David’s Words being in English. (Sarah’s are, too.) He didn’t actually learn what they meant until after they’d moved to America, after he’d started learning English in earnest. When he and Sarah were small, their Words had been a source of fascination. Something strange and foreign. And, as they’d left the only home they’d ever known behind, crossing an entire ocean, they’d been like a promise to the family that whatever might happen when they got there, they were doing the right thing.

The novelty and shine of having Words in a foreign language has worn off some, though, leaving David just frustrated. _Nice to meet you, Davey._

What a joke.

\--

Jack is sure he won’t meet his soulmate until he’s an adult. Or, at the very least, he’s confident he won’t _know_ he’s met his soulmate until he’s an adult. But conventional wisdom is that most people’s Words are said within a few months of knowing each other, because meeting your soulmate is like getting sucked into a planet’s orbit. You’re bound to pull each other off course – or rather, onto a new course – sooner than later.

Jack’s Words are on his right shoulder blade, a spot he can only see if he twists just so in front of a mirror. He’s had them read to him a thousand times though – “What, you mean like a strike?”

He can’t imagine how that could possible come up while he’s still a newsie – especially not in a way that would _change his life_. So he’s sure his soulmate is someone he’ll meet as an adult. Probably someone he works with, and therefore _probably_ a man. Jack doesn’t mind the idea of that. He’s not too picky over his soulmate being a girl or a boy – he’ll be fine with either. He knows some people don’t like that two men or two women can be soulmates, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. Jack doesn’t really see the big deal, your person’s your person, and who somebody else is meant for doesn’t affect you.

Jack lies awake at night wondering what his Words will end up meaning sometimes. Doesn’t everybody, though?

The thing that’s always hung over Jack, the thing that makes him worry about the whole situation from time to time, is that he won’t know for a while who it is. Not just in the grand ‘won’t meet them until he’s an adult’ sense, but that he’ll probably know them and (worse) they’ll probably know him for a bit before he knows it’s them. He’s more than a little afraid they’ll be disappointed when they realize it’s him.

Will his soulmate know he’s theirs before he knows they’re his?

Will he live up to the version of him that they’ve created in their head?

What strike is going to change Jack’s life?

By the time he’s seventeen, Jack has stopped thinking about his soulmate as much as he did as a kid. He doesn’t have the time, with the responsibility of being informal leader of a band of several dozen children who are all trying to survive from day to day.

Soulmates are a popular topic among the boys – a few of whom have already found their own among their ranks – but Jack rarely participates anymore.

\--

On David and Les’s first day as newsies, soulmates are the last thing on his mind. He’s distracted by getting their feet under them as newsies, by not drawing too much attention, by getting what he paid for.

So when this presumptuous, cocky teenager in too long trousers with a too tight shirt hears Les say, “This is my brother David,” and replies, “Nice to meet you, Davey,” David’s heart just about stops.

He’s not sure what he says after those words because no, no, no, there is no _fucking_ way.

Les is looking at David for confirmation of something, and David realizes that his ears have been completely nonfunctional since Jack said _those words_. He figures they’re still on the topic from before though, and yeah, fine, fuck it.

They can be this guy’s selling partners. Maybe learning how to sell newspapers from a full-of-himself dick is going to really rock David’s world.

David nods.

He is definitely going to regret this.

“Did you hear him?” Les says in hushed Polish. “He said your Words!”

“It doesn’t mean he’s my soulmate,” David replies, just as quietly.

“David!” Les chirps, and it’s loud enough that Jack raises an eyebrow.

“What’cha talkin’ about?” asks Jack.

“You’re –“

“Nothing.”

“What is it, me or nothing?”

“You should tell him,” Les says to David, still in Polish.

“It’s not nice to talk in front of people in a language you know they don’t speak,” David says, rather than acknowledging what he said. He turns to Jack. “He’s making fun of me.”

Jack doesn’t look entirely convinced, but he says, “Yeah, okay,” and they move on.

Soulmates come up again later, when they’re killing a bit of time with a few of the other boys.

“I just think it’d be better if you’n ya soulmate both knew at the same time, y’know?” Albert says, his chair tipped onto its back legs. “What good’s it to anybody if it takes ages to know for sure, huh?”

“Most soulmates say each other’s Words within a few months of meeting each other,” David points out. “Ages is generally a bit of an overstatement.”

“Oh, yeah?” says Albert. “Tell that to Racer, his said’em almost a year ago and –“

“Still waiting on’im to know, too,” Race finishes. “Although maybe I did n’he just doesn’t give a shit about soulmates, it’s more’n possible.”

“You heard your Words yet, Davey?” Crutchie asks, leaning forward curiously.

“I – I don’t –“

“Oh, I gotcha,” Jack says. “Ain’t nothin’ to be ashamed’a, Buttons don’t got no Words either, do ya, Buttons?”

“And thank God for that!” Buttons says, raising his water glass.

“No, I just mean – you really don’t have Words?” David knows it happens from time to time, but he’s never met anybody without a soulmate before. Oh, wait, no, is it insensitive to ask about it? He opens his mouth to backtrack, but before he can, the younger boy is speaking again.

“Yeah, and I don’t want any,” Buttons says. “Soulmates are nice’n’all for most people but I don’t wanna deal with that shit. Got bigger things to worry about than all that.”

“Oh,” says David, slightly stunned. “Well, that’s interesting.”

“But you do, don’cha?” says Buttons.

David nods. “I was only going to say I don’t normally like to talk about it. I don’t like my Words much.”

“You don’t _like_ them?” Jack asks.

David doesn’t meet his eye. “No.”

\--

These new kids are interesting, that’s for sure. Jack’s never met somebody who shut down the soulmate talk as hard as Davey – most people, especially most teenagers, would talk about their soulmates till the cows came home. Davey’s a lousy newsie, but he’s got potential.

His little brother is an absolute hoot, too.

He can see the two of them in the wings from his perch up in a box with the pretty reporter girl he ran into this morning, looking none the worse for wear from their near-encounter with Snyder the goddamn spider. They both seem happy, Les maybe a little more so than Davey.

Jack shakes his head a little. God, he can’t even focus on flirting with this reporter because his gaze keeps drifting over to where the Jacobs boys are peeking around the curtain.

Fuck it, okay. It’s not like this girl wants to talk to him anyway. He pulls a scrap of paper out of his pocket – newsprint, but when does he draw on anything clean – and a stubby pencil he carries just for this kind of impulse. Before he knows it, Davey is right there on the page, illuminated by the stage lights with an amused smile on his face as he looks out of the wings.

“What are you doing?” the girl asks.

Jack, startled, drops his sketch. “Quiet down, there’s a show going on!”

He takes his leave shortly after, sketch of Davey completely forgotten.

\--

That night David spends approximately a hundred years complaining to Sarah about it, by Sarah’s exasperated estimation.

“What would be so bad about this kid being your soulmate, David, really?” Sarah says once he’s rambled himself out.

“He –“

“And if you tell me one more time that he’s cocky or some shit, I will repeat to you verbatim your own words about how nice his ‘stupid hair’ is.”

“I just don’t see how this morning changed my life,” David says after opening and closing his mouth in shock a few times.

“Maybe it didn’t,” Sarah replies, shrugging. “ _Maybe_ it was just a coincidence. Is that what you want?”

“I don’t know,” says David.

“Well there’s two options here,” Sarah tells him, ever rational, “either he said your Words and he’s your soulmate and the change is either subtle or gradual - we don’t live in a storybook, David, this isn’t the prince asking Cinderella to dance with him. Not everybody’s Words are a lightning bolt change!”

“Or?”

“ _Or_ he isn’t your soulmate, and somewhere out there is someone else who’s going to say those same words you hate so much. But whichever it is, there’s no use worrying about it.”

“Sarah –“

“Please just go to sleep, David.”

David sighs, but he doesn’t protest any more.

\--

The next day Jack shows up for work and it’s just like any other day except for the fact that it is completely and utterly unlike any other day and Jack is fucking furious about it.

How _dare_ they.

How dare the richest man in the goddamn universe take pennies – fucking _pennies_ – out of the pockets of kids just trying to fucking survive.

He’s gotta do something, they’ve gotta do _something_.

“Nobody gets to that window until they put the price back where it belongs,” is what he says.

And then Davey says, “What, you mean like a strike?”

And it’s a good thing that Jack is a quick thinker and impulsive as all hell, because somehow he manages to blurt out, “You heard Davey, we’re on strike!” when all he’s thinking is _oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit oh –_

Davey Jacobs is his soulmate.

There’s no time to talk about it now, no time to pull Davey aside and tell him or even give into the significant looks he’s getting from Crutchie and Race and a few of the other older boys. Because they’re on _strike_ , and soulmates can fucking wait.

Hours later, they’re getting ready to spread the word to the rest of the city, and Davey is waiting on Jack to walk over to Brooklyn and hopefully swing Spot Conlon, but that reporter girl’s stopped him for an _interview_.

“Are you selling newspapers to work your way through art school?” she asks.

Jack scoffs. “Art school?”

“You have real talent,” she says, holding out Jack’s sappy sketch of Davey from yesterday. God, he should’ve known, really, with how he hadn’t been able to tear his eyes away. “You should be inside the paper illustrating, not outside hawking it.”

“Well maybe that’s not what I want.”

“Then tell me what you want.”

Jack debates, briefly, laying on the flirting a little thick like he had been the last few times he’d seen her, to dazzle and maybe redirect her off of this topic that he would give just about anything to avoid. It doesn’t quite feel _right_ , though. Instead, he takes his hat off, dragging a hand through his hair. “I just wanna live past eighteen, if I’m honest, Miss. This price hike might get me – ‘specially ‘cause any spare penny I got is goin’ toward makin’ sure the littles are taken care’a.”

The girl’s eyes go wide, but she doesn’t comment immediately. She just makes a note. “I – I see. And have you always been their leader?”

“I’m just a blowhard,” Jack says, waving her off. “Davey’s the brains’a this whole strike thing, you know. I ain’t the one you should be talkin’ to.”

“Modesty isn’t a quality I’d have expected from you,” the girl says, shaking her head with a slight laugh. “That’s his name, then? Your partner’s?”

“Yeah, he’s Davey,” Jack confirms.

“Davey,” the girl repeats to herself, noting it down. He sees her eyes flick to the drawing, which Jack is still holding.

“ _You_ got a name?” Jack asks, as much to deflect any more potential questions about Davey or the sketch as because he’s just realized he’s gotten this far into knowing her without being able to put a name to her face.

“Katherine,” the girl replies, then she hesitates briefly before adding, “Plumber.”

“What, ain’t you sure?”

“It’s my byline. The name I publish under.”

Not her real name, then. Jack knows a thing or two about that, as a newsie, and he knows better than to press. He nods.

“What comes next for you, Jack?”

“Today, we stopped the newsies sellin’. Tomorrow, we stop the wagons.”

\--

The whole time they’re walking to Brooklyn, it’s on the tip of David’s tongue.

He doesn’t say it.

\--

The whole time they’re walking to Brooklyn, it’s in the back of Jack’s head.

He doesn’t say it.

\--

Jack is missing, and Crutchie is in the Refuge, and everything has gone completely and utterly to shit.

David is all kinds of mess, but he’s trying to keep his head on straight as he directs the boys through their next steps. He’s got an idea, it might be a good one, but he needs to find Jack and he needs to pull himself together.

When he _does_ find Jack – exactly where he expects to – the other boy is half dressed, his shirt abandoned to one side so it doesn’t get splattered with paint as he works on a backdrop for Medda. He’s just wearing a sleeveless undershirt, and David catches the briefest glimpse of text on Jack’s shoulder as he raises his arm to paint the flat.

He isn’t trying to pry, but he can’t help but notice that what he can see is the last few letters of a question.

He can’t help but wonder what that question might be.

(He can’t help but wonder if he’s said it yet, if Jack knows.)

But despite a small flame of curiosity burning in his chest, David doesn’t ask. They’ve got a strike to organize, and there’s no time for soulmates now.

\--

Pulitzer doesn’t know that Davey is Jack’s soulmate – how could he, even with Katherine a dirty traitor – but he knows that Davey is Jack’s _partner_ , and he threatens him by name.

It sends a chill right to Jack’s core, to hear Joseph Pulitzer call Davey by the name that Jack gave him and threaten him with the Refuge. Jack Kelly prides himself on not being easily frightened, but he is deeply, deeply afraid of Warden Snyder and the Refuge.

He cannot risk being the reason that Davey or Les or any of the other boys wind up there. He cannot be the reason things get worse there for Crutchie.

He cannot be the reason that Davey gets hurt.

(He knows, even as he agrees to the terms that Pulitzer’s set forth, that he will hurt Davey anyway. But if betraying him keeps him physically whole, keeps him _alive_ to hate Jack, then Jack will take it. He’d rather Davey never speak to him again than let him see the inside of the Refuge.)

He takes the deal.

The look on Davey’s face when Jack betrays the strike is almost enough to make Jack throw the whole thing away and beg for his forgiveness.

He makes a run for the rooftop instead, trying to remember how to breathe.

\--

It’s late, and Davey is still with the newsboys because he can’t bring himself to tell Sarah what happened. He can’t put it to words.

 _I know he’s my soulmate now, Sarah_ , he imagines himself saying, _I know he is, because if he weren’t this wouldn’t hurt so badly_.

Race is sitting with him, on the floor in the corner of the dorm where the boys sleep. He’s falling apart, too, because Jack was his best friend and his brother and his mentor and now Jack is gone and Race has to take care of these boys however he can, because Race was Jack’s second and now he’s their leader.

“Davey - Davey, what’cha words?” Race asks after a while, his voice ragged. “I know you don’t like’em, but –“

“Race,” David replies, “I don’t see how that’s relevant right now.”

“Please,” says Race. “Please, Davey. I gotta know if you know.”

 _Oh._ Race must know Jack’s words, then. And David must’ve said them.

Silently, David pushes his rolled sleeve above the narrow band of text on his arm. He holds his arm out to Race, unable to bring himself to repeat them aloud.

“Oh,” says Race. He looks up from the Words to meet David’s eye. “Oh, Davey. He named you.”

“I wasn’t sure at first,” David admits. “To be honest, I’ve really been hoping it was just a coincidence.”

“But it’s not,” Race says. It isn’t a question. “You said his, too, Davey. _What, you mean like a strike?”_

“Those are his?” says David, hushed. He remembers saying it, that first morning of the strike. 

“Yeah,” says Race. “Davey, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah, I – yeah,” David says. “Thanks.

He lets the younger boy pull him into a tight hug, mumbling reassurances.

“Mine don’t want me neither, you know,” Race says, almost inaudibly.

“What?” David replies.

“My soulmate,” Race clarifies. “I told the boys I ain’t said his Words yet, but –“

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s – I’m fine. I just wan’cha to know you ain’t alone, you know?”

“Thanks, Racer.”

Race presses a kiss to David’s temple. “We gotta stick together, you’n I.”

“Yeah,” says David, “we do.”

\--

Katherine finds Jack on the rooftop, because of course the only person Jack wants to see less than Davey right now shows up.

They fight, throwing insults and accusations and it’s incredibly cathartic. Katherine punches Jack and then kisses him in very quick succession, then bursts away like she’s been burned.

“I’ve got to know you didn’t do it for the money.”

“Davey’s my soulmate,” Jack blurts.

“I – oh,” says Katherine. “ _Oh_. That makes a lot of sense, actually.”

“Yeah,” Jack says dully. “Not that it’ll make any difference. He ain’t ever gonna wanna talk to me again.”

“He’s going to have to,” Katherine says. “We’ll need his help if we’re going to save your strike.”

“Oh, and how do you propose we do that?”

About half an hour later, Jack creeps into the dorm room, looking for Race. He figures it’ll probably be easier to get his friend back on his side than his soulmate. Not that Davey isn’t also his friend, but –

Well, there goes any chance Jack had of delaying talking to Davey, because not only is he here he’s tightly entangled with Race on one of the narrow beds. They’re both more or less on their sides, facing each other, both clinging like it’s a lifeline, their faces close.

“Davey,” Jack says, pushing down the small twinge of jealousy in his chest. He doesn’t deserve to decide how Davey mends his heart after what happened. “Race. Wake up.”

Both boys startle awake almost instantly, and Davey’s eyes go wide. “Jack!”

Race twists around to glare up at Jack. “The fuck do you think you’re doing, showing your face here?”

“I need’ja help,” Jack says brokenly. “I know I don’t have any right to ask it of you, but I need’ja help.”

Davey makes a pained little sound that makes Jack’s heart ache, and in an instant Race has turned back toward him, caressing his cheek and kissing his forehead. That makes Jack’s heart ache, too.

“I still gotcha,” Race says, so softly Jack almost doesn’t hear. “I gotcha, you’re okay.”

Davey pushes up onto his elbow, Race’s hand falling away from his face. “What do you want, Jack?”

Jack tells them. He explains the whole thing and then drops to his knees next to them and apologizes about twelve times.

“Please, this is the only way I can make things right.”

Race and Davey look at each other, then back at Jack.

“Okay,” Davey says finally. “Okay.”

\--

“With the strike settled, I’d better get moving along –“

“Are you _fucking kidding me_?” David snaps. “What the _fuck_ has Santa Fe got that New York ain’t, huh? Tarantulas? Sandstorms?” He stomps over to Jack, gripping the shorter boy’s shoulder tightly. “Your friends are here.” David glances back at Race and Crutchie, who are watching with tense anticipation, holding onto each other. “Your family, Jack. Your family is here.”

“I –“ Jack starts.

“Jack!” David interrupts, slightly desperately. “ _I’m_ here. Doesn’t that make any fucking difference?”

“Davey,” says Jack. It’s a little shaky.

David wrenches his sleeve up past his elbow, holding his arm out for Jack to see his Words. “Do you remember saying this, Jackie?”

“I do,” Jack breathes, looking stunned. Everybody else is looking on in silent shock as well.

“You dragged me into all of this,” says David. “You –“

“Did I not hear something about the strike being settled?” Pulitzer says from above them. The rest of the crowd startles into motion, the boys all swarming to pick up their papers. Jack and David stay frozen in the middle of it all.

“You renamed me, Jackie,” David says softly. “And you made me brave and bold and as much as I want to hate you for what you did, I – I can’t.”

“I can’t promise I’d never do something like that again if it meant protecting you, Davey,” Jack replies. “Because I was, I was protecting you. But if you’d give me a chance I would – Davey, I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make this up to you.” He takes his hat off, wringing it nervously in his hands. “New York or Santa Fe, my dreams ain’t worth much if you ain’t there with me.”

On an impulse, David pulls Jack into a kiss. It’s a little inelegant, a little awkward, but it’s worth it for how amazing it feels to be kissing Jack Kelly.

“Guys!” Les’s voice shouts, and then a cheer goes up among the newsies.

“Jack!” Race calls as Jack and David separate, still holding each other. “You in or you out!”

“I was _busy_ ,” Jack says, sticking his tongue out at Race.

“Don’t care! You got time fa’ smoochin’ when you sells outta your papes!” says Race.

Laughing, Jack and David approach the counter and buy their papers. They stay arm-in-arm the whole time.

Race taps David’s shoulder. “You sure?”

“I’m sure,” says David. He smiles over at Jack. “I think he’s got his head on straight now.”

“Good,” says Race, and David can tell he means it.

“Racer!” Spot Conlon calls. “You walkin’ back with me?”

Race turns, startled. “Yeah, yeah, Spotty, keep ya shirt on.” He looks back to David and Jack. “See you later, boys. Don’t run away to Santa Fe when I’m not here to talk sense into you.”

“Don’t worry,” says David, “I won’t let him.”

David doesn’t hate his Words anymore. He’d never known, growing up, that meeting someone could pull you into an entirely different world than you’d known, could turn you into a different person. That the name somebody calls you can change your life.

Now that they have, he wouldn’t want it any other way.


End file.
